Wednesday, November 3, 2010

A MONTH TO BE ASHAMED OF

Sam Neill draws a bead on an incoming Orc

Last month was one in which I was truly ashamed to be a New Zealander.

After half a century of watching creative Kiwis with commitment, guts, ingenuity and passion build a film culture out of nothing it was chilling to watch it driven into an orgy of mendacity, manipulation, vilification and injustice - and driven there by nothing more edifying than greed.

Over those fifty years I have had the good fortune to have been on the fringes of New Zealand film. By chance I designed the titles and credits for John O'Shea's Runaway. I wrote scripts for Pukemanu, Section Seven and Crawford's Matlock Police. As chair of the Arts Council I persuaded the council to fund Sleeping Dogs and a wild extravaganza by Geoff Murphy called Chicken Man. I doctored scripts for the early Film Commission. Best of all I sat in Hollywood's Kodak Theatre with tears of pride streaming down my chubby cheeks while my wife collected an Oscar for costume design for The Return of the King having also been nominated for Last Samurai. And we were aware that The Piano, Jane Campion and Anna Paquin had been there before

The rabid, unnecessary and ugly row around The Hobbit made me ashamed.

Sir Peter Jackson and Weta Workshops are not the New Zealand film industry. They are a significant part of it and have achieved marvelous things. But even in turnover they represent only about 10% of a nation wide industry worth $2.5 billion.

But it is more than money.

The film industry world wide is rich with talented New Zealanders - Directors, Producers, Cinematographers, Production Designers, Art Directors, Costume Designers and Actors. Warner Brothers major 2011 production Green Lantern had no less than eight New Zealanders, from the Director down, in creative roles - and it featured two New Zealand actors.

In last years Academy Awards, five out of the ten nominations for best film had some New Zealand creative input and, yes, two of those involved Weta and Sir Peter Jackson.

At home Taika Waititi's Boy broke the box office records set by The Worlds Fastest Indian and Whale Rider.

These are the achievements I wish the government had acknowledged long before last week when it got sucked into an unseemly and murky scourging of the shires.

1 comment:

HAMISH KEITH

ABOUT HAMISH KEITH

Hamish Keith has been writing about and working with the arts in New Zealand for almost half a century.

He has published a number of books on cultural and social history and cooking as well as the arts.

He has contributed reviews and comment on the arts and urban and social issues for numerous magazines and newspapers since writing a weekly column of art news and reviews for the Auckland Star from 1962 to 1975.

With Gordon H Brown he wrote the first history of New Zealand art An Introduction to New Zealand Painting, published by William Collins in 1969.

Keith worked at the Auckland City Art Gallery from 1958 to 1970, as Student Assistant (1958-61), Assistant Keeper (1961-64), and Keeper of the Gallery (1965-70), before working as a freelance journalist, writer and art consultant.

He has been chair of the National Gallery and chair of the Arts Council (aka Creative NZ ) and in 1999 headed the survey of the arts infrastructure Heart of the Nation which the grateful government ignored.

He was the original driver of the Te Papa exhibition

Keith has been, at times, a controversial figure in the arts.

Willing to stand up publicly for his opinions, Keith has played a significant role in the artistic life of New Zealand since the late 1950s.Keith has been a consistent critic of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa , referring to it as a "theme park", the "cultural equivalent to a fast-food outlet" and "not even a de facto national gallery"

The Big PictureHis recent work includes a 6 part documentary series The Big Picture, which broadcast on TVNZ and is available as a DVD.

The accompanying book, The Big Picture, is published by Godwit, NZ

Native WitHe has also recently published his memoir Native Wit, Random House.

Current projectHe is currently planning and researching a new documentary series on the Pacific War